


a sky of diamonds just for us

by strawberryswinging



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberryswinging/pseuds/strawberryswinging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>louis and harry go on a ski trip. title from "i'll hold my breath" by ellie goulding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a sky of diamonds just for us

**Author's Note:**

> all of this is fiction but i wish it wasn't

Louis wants to kiss Harry.

Yeah, he’s sure of it. He’s thought about it and he’s not thought about it, but when he tried to not think about it he realized the not thinking about it was pretty much the same thing as thinking about it.

He’s nineteen and he's sitting on top of the world and he wants to kiss Harry.

They finally have time in December. Time, a thing they forgot even existed, so Harry suggests skiing ("I don't know how though, Lou, so you'll have to teach me.") It sounds like a ploy to get away from everyone else, to get away from all of it, and Louis is okay with that. He can teach Harry to ski. That'll be no problem.

So they plan a trip and Stan comes along because, well, Louis's missed Stan and he wants Stan and Harry to get to know each other and it just makes sense. He's trying to be not so obvious. Oh god, he thinks. There's no point. Everyone knows, don't they?

Everyone, it seems, except Harry. Harry, who purrs like a kitten when Louis absentmindedly runs his hands through his curls. Harry, who presses his fingertips right into the soft spot next to Louis's hip bone and watches with a smirk at the way it makes Louis jolt in the middle of an interview. Harry, who smiles at everything Louis says and laughs at all his jokes and mirrors his movements like they're connected by a string, some invisible strand, like it'll snap and the world will fall off its axis if they are ever separated.

Harry, who just won't seem to close the gap between them when their noses are so close and their breathing is soft, early in the morning, after he's slipped into Louis's bed in the middle of the night and the sunlight that peeks through the blinds isn't what brightens the room, it's the light coming from Harry's eyes. Beaming. Louis drinks it up and he feels full for the rest of the day.

Everyone knows, it seems, except Harry.

*

"Okay," Louis begins calmly, "d'you remember what I said about leaning on the curves?"

They'd talked about which way to lean if Harry wanted to turn left or right. It had taken him about twenty minutes, but Harry finally managed to stand up straight on skis without his gangly knees knocking, causing him to fall backward in a heap of laughter. Truth be told, it was adorable. Louis almost doesn't want him to get it right. They discussed the poles and how to use them and how to cross the skis if he wanted to stop and pretty much everything else Louis can think of. After a couple of test runs down the kids' hill at the bottom of the mountain, Louis thinks Harry is ready. Stan goes off to an intermediate run with a few Austrian girls he met, planning to meet Louis and Harry at the lodge later on.

Harry smiles widely. "Yeah. I mean, I think so. Guess we'll find out now, won't we?" He looks way too excited. It makes Louis nervous.

"It's just a bunny hill, Haz. We can always stop if you want to." Louis regrets this the moment he's said it. He tries so hard to come off confident, doesn't want Harry to realize that he's not as good at this as he seems. His sister Fizzy was always better than he was, and she never let Louis forget it.

"God, Lou, you sound like my mum. Let's just go already." Harry readjusts his goggles and Louis wants to cry about the way his curls flip out from underneath his beanie, just a little bit, just enough to make Louis ache at how much he wants to touch them.

Louis wants to kiss Harry.

"Okay. Here we go." Louis gives himself a little push with his poles, gently, like his instructor had taught him when he was six. He begins to panic a bit as Harry slides past him, faster than he should be going for his first time. He regrets not paying for an instructor for Harry. What made Louis think he was qualified? What if something happens to him? He rolls his eyes at his uneasiness and wonders whatever happened to his carefree state of mind. 

He doesn't have all that much time to really worry about Harry before he sees him drift into a snowbank not even thirty seconds after he'd pushed off for the first time. Louis pushes on his poles and glides toward where Harry is giggling to himself in the snow, snowflakes glittering in his hair and his eyelashes and Louis feels his breath hitch and fuck, he wants to kiss Harry.

"Dunno what happened, Lou," Harry says through his grin. "Did everything you told me to."

"It's all right, as long as you're okay." Louis pinches his cheek and Harry melts into the movement. It takes everything in Louis to not eat him up. "Come on then, let's have another go."

They steady each other as they attempt to stand up again, Louis having bent down to pick Harry up and dust the snow off his back and his arse, maybe lingering a little bit on the latter.

Harry is all too eager to continue down the slopes, and Louis smiles to himself at the realization that Harry is trying to impress him. His cheeks burn, maybe from the sun or maybe from laughing every time they make it about forty-five seconds only for Harry to crash into more snow. Harry really does try, and he gets a bit further each time, but he still goes quite fast and doesn't really get the hang of turning. Every time he turns around to see Louis's smile of approval, that's when he goes back down into the snow.

It's all going rather fine - up, down, up, down, - until they reach a particularly treacherous curve and they come to a stop, staring it down.

"What sort of bunny hill is this?" Louis says in surprise. He swears he's been down this hill before, when Daisy and Phoebe were just learning, he swears this curve wasn't here. 

"Harry, look, if you want - " Louis is cut off by the sudden feeling of Harry's mittened hand taking his. "We'll do it together, yeah?"

Even through his layers of jumpers, Louis's skin is on fire at the contact. Truthfully it's barely even contact at all, much less than the contact Louis has been daydreaming about all day, but it's enough to make his head nearly spin. 

"You sure?" he asks.

"Yeah," nods Harry. "I mean, if I die, you'll die too, so you can't really feel bad about it then. C'mon, I really wanna try it."

Louis wants to kiss Harry.

Instead, he feels himself lurching forward and Harry's hand is dragging them down, poles under his armpit, and Louis barely has time to process the fact that they nearly make it around the curve and down the entire hill before they're a tangle of snow covered limbs and barreling laughter, rolling over each other until coming to a stop a a particularly large mass of snow about ten feet before the bottom of the hill. How they made it around that curve, Louis will never be sure.

Harry is absolutely alight with laughter and his beanie has come off, doubling as a small pillow as he lays on his back in the snow. They're laying side by side, hand in hand, and Louis's smile is hurting his face. He rolls over onto his stomach, props himself up, and he can feel the snow melting into his elbows, soaking through to his skin. Harry's caught his breath now, looking up at the trees, eyelashes glistening with snowflakes and his fringe is damp from sweat from where it was tucked under his beanie. 

Louis thinks Harry has never looked more beautiful.

It feels like that moment, the one in the films where the are sparks in the air and there sparks in Louis's eyes and he knows this is it, when it should happen. The mountain is silent and there's no one for miles and Harry's lips are a little chapped from the wind but they're so red, and Louis knows Harry is looking at him with anticipation and Louis wants to kiss Harry but he can't meet his eyes, not yet. 

Instead Louis looks his body up and down and clears his throat and edges forward but then as quick as it came, the feeling is gone. It's not right, not now, not when his fingers are icicles and he knows Harry's body is so warm but he can't touch it here and his heart is racing and he wouldn't want to screw it up with fumbled words; no, there are better moments than this.

(If Harry also notices the heat in the moment that's just passed, he makes no mention of it.)

"Lou?" says Harry softly after a few moments, eyes giving up on meeting Louis's and instead moving up to the branches of the trees above him. "What do you reckon'll happen now?"

"Well, Stan and those girls are waiting at the bottom, guess we'll just walk down the rest and meet them, yeah?" They've unbuckled their skis from their boots and set them down in the snow.

Harry smiles and closes his eyes. "I mean with the band. D'you really think this is it? Like, what do you think's gonna happen?" His voice is low but earnest, like it's a secret he isn't sure he wants to spill to anyone but Louis.

"I don't know," admits Louis. "But we've got each other now, haven't we? And the other boys. Way I see it, it can only go up from here."

Harry seems pleased with that answer. He sits up, resting his arms on his knees, and turns to face Louis.

"What?" asks Louis when he notices how wide Harry's grin is.

Harry responds by reaching over and dumping a handful of snow right onto Louis's face, straight in his mouth and up his nose. Before Louis can even react properly, Harry's got his skis under his arm and starts sliding down the icy hill on his bum. He doesn't move too fast, but Louis is already far behind Harry when he hears him shout, "Come on, Lou! I need a hot chocolate. Race you to the bottom!"

Louis laughs the whole way down, laughs when he sees how winded Harry is at the bottom of the hill ("You'd think you could move faster on your bum!"), laughs when he realizes just how happy he is and laughs even harder at how positively besotted with Harry he is. 

*

The boys return to their tiny room in the resort and Louis manages to figure out how to get the fire to work. He's grateful it's just an electric fire; he knows nothing about lighting an actual fire. The warmth resonates through the room and they keep the lights off as Stan pours too much Bailey's in everyone's cocoa (one of the Austrian girls, Louis can't quite remember her name, speaks softly with an accent and he can actually see the hearts in Stan's eyes when she agrees to come back to their room after their day in the mountains) and suggests a game of truth or dare that ends in Louis prank calling the front desk and ordering thirty bars of soap to be delivered to the room next door. 

Harry can't stop laughing at that, laughing at the thick southern American accent Louis uses when he calls and he leans into Louis's lap after it's all through, Louis's hands running through his curls like usual. Harry's breathing slows a bit, and the noises and protests outside in the hall finally calm down after the soap has arrived. Everyone's eyelids are heavy and the Austrian girl is whispering something in Stan's ear. He salutes Harry and Louis as they make for the door hand in hand, asks them not to miss him too much, and receives a hearty smack on the arse from Louis.

"See you at breakfast, lads," Stan slurs as he shuts the door.

Louis is leaning against the bedframe, and Harry crawls out of his lap and props himself up next to Louis. They're silent for a few minutes, sipping what's left of their cocoa, and it isn't awkward, really it's not, but Louis wants to fill the spaces in the air, the spaces between them, between their bodies and their words and their breaths and - 

"My cocoa's gone cold," Harry announces with a frown as he examines the remaining inch or so of his drink. Louis exhales and moves to take it from him, shivering at the icy feeling of Harry's fingertips.

"So have your hands, babe. Give them to me." Louis isn't quite sure where he gets the courage, but now he's rubbing his hands together with Harry's and he can't quite back out now. He turns to Harry and slows his movements a bit, sitting cross legged, eyes flickering from the fire to Harry's lips to Harry's eyes to his hands to his own lap again. Fuck, he thinks. The spiked cocoa makes him feel even more nervous; he wants the moment from earlier that afternoon to return but he doesn't want to force it. He worries that his palms are sweaty, that Harry can feel it and christ, he doesn't even know who he is anymore. He doesn't know how this boy got under his skin and shifted all of his bones, how he can see Harry nearly every day and still feel like the boy radiates, like he glows. He makes Louis uneasy but nothing compares to the sense of security when he's with Harry. No one has ever made him feel so alive, but at the same time so unsure. The contrast drives Louis crazy. Someone as confident as Louis shouldn't feel so breakable, like the very ground he stands on depends on someone else's every move. Harry's every move.

"What's wrong?" asks Harry when he notices Louis's unease.

Louis wants to kiss Harry. He's never wanted anything so badly in his life. Want courses through his veins, he feels his muscles tense with it, feels his breathing heavy with it.

"Nothing," Louis replies quickly, hoping Harry will assume the beads of sweat forming on his forehead are from his proximity to the fireplace and not his current state of nervousness. He looks down in his lap again, their hands still intertwined. Louis wonders if Harry can feel his heartbeat through his hands.

"Louis," breathes Harry, his voice barely audible. Louis feels Harry lift his chin and their eyes meet, glassy and wide, pupils blown, and he doesn't even have time to consider if this is the moment, the right moment, before he feels the press of Harry's lips on his. It's soft and slow and innocent and Louis eases into it gently, not wanting to rush, not wanting to mess it up. 

Harry smiles into the kiss, pushing into it a bit. Louis lets out a small sigh, opening his mouth slightly, testing the waters before letting Harry's tongue lick gently into his mouth. He tastes like cocoa and like heaven and it's a dream, better than anything Louis could have pictured. Harry traces his fingers under Louis's shirt, up and down his spine, and Louis lets out a sound he'd be embarrassed about if it were anyone but Harry. There's lightning in his veins and he whispers, "finally" despite himself and hears Harry giggle at that. "You're telling me," he responds against Louis's mouth, and Louis has never felt so alive.

If it ever stops snowing outside, neither Harry nor Louis notices. The first rays of sunshine break over the top of the mountains hours later, dancing gently on the white duvet, their limbs tangled together underneath. This is the moment, Louis thinks as he opens his eyes and the first thing he sees is Harry. Right then he decides that's the only thing he wants to see when he wakes up every day from now on, the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes again at night. Harry.

Louis wants to kiss Harry, so he does.


End file.
